Did Greg Kinnear's Fox Dramedy Rake You In?

In the new Fox dramedy Rake, which bowed Thursday night (9/8c), Greg Kinnear plays Keegan Deane, a brilliant but manipulative criminal defense attorney who can’t seem to stop drinking, gambling or hiring prostitutes. But were Deane’s antics enough to warrant a retrial from you?

Before you vote in the poll below, a brief recap. When we first meet Deane, he’s getting his face bashed into a bathroom wall. It turns out, the conniving attorney owes $15,000 in gambling debt and his fellow player wants him to pay up. After getting his face nice and bloody, Deane’s assailant asks him, “Where is your dignity?” Surely it’s in the courtroom, right?

Perhaps. In the show’s first case, we meet Jack Tarrant (guest star Peter Stormare, Phineas and Ferb) a serial killer said to have killed nine people. The case seems all but closed until Tarrant accuses Los Angeles Chief of Police Bernie Michaels (guest star Bill Smitrovich, The Event) of writing his confessionals. Deane looks into it and it turns out – thanks to the police chief’s terrible grammar — the convicted killer is right! Moral of the story? Terrible grammar will get you nowhere in life.

Outside of the courtroom, we discover Deane’s life is kind of a mess. When assistant Leanne (Tara Summers, Ringer) isn’t fixing everything for him, Deane’s crashing on his best friend Ben’s (Luck‘s John Ortiz) couch or getting therapy from his seemingly seductive ex-wife Maddy (Miranda Otto, War of the Worlds). To complicate things further, Deane has googly eyes for a prostitute (Bojana Novakovic, Edge of Darkness). And his teenage son (Ian Colletti, Phoebe in Wonderland) may be following his father’s lead. Rut-roh.

While he is no Walter White, Kinnear makes for a compelling antihero who knows how to deliver a zingy one-liner. But what will set him a part from all the other, better antiheroes we’ve seen grace the small screen? As Rake continues, we’ll be interested to see how the show balances its wacky humor with its darker storylines.

But enough about what we thought; let’s hear what you have to say. (We promise we won’t hold you under oath.) Grade the new series via the poll below, then hit the comments to back up your choice.